SALT LAKE CITY — Doctors with Intermountain Healthcare are once again warning everyone to keep taking precautions against the spread of the coronavirus after Utah saw its highest daily number of deaths due to COVID-19 in more than a month.
On Thursday, the Utah Department of Health reported 30 Utahns have died of COVID-19 - the highest single-day number of COVID-19 fatalities since the middle of December.
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Doctors say while the post holiday surge in the number of cases appears to have leveled off, the number of fatalities is clearly alarming.
Utah’s seven-day averages for the number of new cases and the percent of positive tests have dropped in recent weeks, and nearly 200,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in Utah.
But, as the state’s intensive care units continue to operate at 90 percent capacity and thousands of new cases are identified in Utah each day, doctors say the basic precautions for preventing the spread of COVID-19 are as important as ever.
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“Keep wearing your masks, keep hand sanitizing frequently, monitor that space between each other. It’s still the most important tool in our toolkit to combat this virus and the spread of the virus,” said Dr. Mark Briesacher, an Intermountain Healthcare physician, during a news conference Friday morning.
Dr. Briesacher reminds Utahns who’ve received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine that it’s important to follow up and get the second dose as scheduled.
“Otherwise there will only be partial immunity in the community and that could allow mutant or different variations of the virus to spread more easily,” Briesacher said.
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